We are all called to love our neighbor. We go out of our way to care for others providing for their needs and desires. Thinking of this “ideal” definition of love, I had to pause and reflect when I read this definition:
Love is that you “want to kill someone”, then you realize that you would really, really miss them!
Are we really that bad? Could we be?
We would like to think of ourselves as “loving persons”, shunning away from the thought that we sometimes harbor normal human feelings such as envy, anger, impatience and intolerance.
We turn away from looking into the reality mirror acknowledging unfinished business and our need for change, which at times may just seem too much for us. We don’t want to think of ourselves as people capable of misdeeds.
Sometimes a tiny voice inside us will call out insistently, “Something’s not right! Better take a look!” We get scared, so we whistle in the dark or turn on the television, or pick up the phone, or shop till we drop to drown out that little voice.
Sadly sometimes we succeed for years or even a lifetime in drowning out that little voice never knowing ourselves and never filling out the wonderful image that God dreamed for us on the day we were born.
There is much good in us to rejoice over and much unfinished in us to weep over. But there is nothing in us to fear – except the blindness which fear makes us choose. That blindness strangles life, stunts growth and kills God’s wonderful dreams for us.
We can afford the luxury of reflection and looking within, because we know the Lord is with us with his strength and compassion.
There is nothing the two of us cannot face together.
May God grant us the grace to open our eyes and step into the light, to see all that God sees leaving our fears of self knowledge far behind and grow into the beautiful image that God has dreamed about the day we were born.
